Luggage racks are typically mounted on the roof or other exterior surface of automotive vehicles and have proved to be very useful and popular accessory items for carrying a load.
Early forms of luggage racks employed side rails with intermediate skid strips.
Another general type of luggage rack has slats along the sides of the vehicle on which stanchions connected to cross members are mounted.
In more recent designs, the cross members have stanchions which are slidably engaged with the side rails so that the cross members may be moved along the side rails to conform to the size of the load and then locked in position. Examples of this type of design are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,007,570 and 5,170,920.
The luggage rack of the present invention is of the latter type in which the stanchions on the cross members slidably engage a pair of side rails mounted on the roof or other exterior surface of the vehicle.
Each side rail has an elongated channel and each channel preferably has parallel top and bottom flanges defining opposite sides of the channel. The cross member has stanchions on the ends of a cross bar. The stanchions each have a body portion and each body portion preferably has an elongated slot extending parallel to the flanges, with the slots slidably receiving in the top flanges of the respective side rails and with a portion of the body portions engaged in the channels. Means are provided for releasably locking the stanchions in adjusted positions along the rails, such means comprising a line of apertures formed in the top flanges. A lock member preferably located in a recess in the body portion of each stanchion has a locking pin engageable with any one of the apertures in the top flange of the associated side rail to lock the cross bar in adjusted position. Each lock member is shiftable from a first position in which the locking pin is engaged in one of the apertures to a second position in which the locking pin is withdrawn. Each lock member can be shifted to the position withdrawing the locking pin by pressure exerted against a button which is accessible through an opening in the stanchion. A spring is provided for each lock member to urge the locking pin into engagement with one of the apertures. Preferably, these lock members have an integral hinge, sometimes referred to as a living hinge, so that they may be shifted from one position to the other by pivoting about the axis of the hinge.
Preferably, the exterior surface of the automotive vehicle on which the luggage rack is mounted comprises a roof structure which has a central roof panel and laterally spaced apart, parallel, raised portions along the opposite side edges of the roof panel. These raised portions cooperate with the side edge portions of the roof panel in forming generally L-shaped mounting troughs for the rails. The rails are anchored firmly in the troughs and are prevented from bending or becoming distorted under a load carried by the rack. Also, these raised portions at least partially obscure the luggage rack when the vehicle is viewed from the side.
One object of this invention is to provide a luggage rack having the foregoing features.
Another object is to provide a luggage rack which is of simplified design, is composed of a relatively few simple parts, is rugged and durable in use, and is easy and inexpensive to manufacture and assemble.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent as the following description proceeds, especially when considered with the accompanying drawings.